Reading Redefining Realness really opens up the genre, memoir, and takes it to a whole other level.
I've asked over and over what it means for anyone to be the opposite gender of what they are born.
If it's inappropriate to stereotype, then isn't it sexist to "convert" in the first place?
Dr. J wrote in our writing conversation today that Janet's decision to become a girl somehow empowers what being a woman means.
Why? I feel like that doesn't quite fit. I see where the thought comes from, but here's my rub: Don't those who understand and who are in the LGBTQ community believe that they are born the way they are?
Clarification: Don't they believe they were ALWAYS a girl? if they are a transwoman? At least in Mock's case, right? So it would be incorrect and inappropriate to suggest that because she technically began life as a male, that it was a compliment to females that "he" chose to become a female.
Right?
The book really frustrated me in this regard. To me it suggested that all it meant to be a woman was to wear dresses and own the pronoun "she"
"I spent hours in her room, playing with her cosmetics, plucking my eyebrows, trying on bras. The more time I spent with Wendi, the more comfortable I grew expressing myself as a female. By the end of my freshman year in high school, I was regularly wearing women's clothes to school."
I feel like there is so much more to being a woman than dressing the part and having a vagina. Reading this memoir I feel like Janet Mock only sees a woman's life as being glamorous.
Maybe as they spend their life as woman they will be able to understand more fully what it actually means.
I've asked over and over what it means for anyone to be the opposite gender of what they are born.
If it's inappropriate to stereotype, then isn't it sexist to "convert" in the first place?
Dr. J wrote in our writing conversation today that Janet's decision to become a girl somehow empowers what being a woman means.
Why? I feel like that doesn't quite fit. I see where the thought comes from, but here's my rub: Don't those who understand and who are in the LGBTQ community believe that they are born the way they are?
Clarification: Don't they believe they were ALWAYS a girl? if they are a transwoman? At least in Mock's case, right? So it would be incorrect and inappropriate to suggest that because she technically began life as a male, that it was a compliment to females that "he" chose to become a female.
Right?
The book really frustrated me in this regard. To me it suggested that all it meant to be a woman was to wear dresses and own the pronoun "she"
"I spent hours in her room, playing with her cosmetics, plucking my eyebrows, trying on bras. The more time I spent with Wendi, the more comfortable I grew expressing myself as a female. By the end of my freshman year in high school, I was regularly wearing women's clothes to school."
I feel like there is so much more to being a woman than dressing the part and having a vagina. Reading this memoir I feel like Janet Mock only sees a woman's life as being glamorous.
Maybe as they spend their life as woman they will be able to understand more fully what it actually means.
I thought a lot of the same in reading her book. For all the talk about the spectrum of identity, the people in her book have a very clearly defined idea of femininity and masculinity. Their goal is to move to one side of our defined gender norms, reinforcing the typical binary perspective of our culture.
ReplyDeleteAlly, you raise a great issue - what does it mean to be a woman? And if she was always a woman why does a physical transition make her heroic? When I reflect on your post I believe that Janet Mock largely avoids talking about what it means to be female. You are right in saying that it is not just about the superficial aspects of life including clothes, looks, and body parts. I thought Kyle's comment was excellent as well. Femininity and masculinity seemed to be heightened to the extremes,by Janet and others in her memoir,reinforcing the typical gender binary.
ReplyDeleteAlly, you raise a great issue - what does it mean to be a woman? And if she was always a woman why does a physical transition make her heroic? When I reflect on your post I believe that Janet Mock largely avoids talking about what it means to be female. You are right in saying that it is not just about the superficial aspects of life including clothes, looks, and body parts. I thought Kyle's comment was excellent as well. Femininity and masculinity seemed to be heightened to the extremes,by Janet and others in her memoir,reinforcing the typical gender binary.
ReplyDeleteI feel gender shouldn't have to categorize us in anyway, but it does. Janet is Real because she became the woman she's always felt she should be. She felt she was living a lie because the body she was born in didn't feel right.
ReplyDeleteYou raise great questions here, Ally. What does it mean to be a woman? I believe that Janet Mock quotes the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, who famously said "One is not made but rather becomes a woman." How does anyone claim their gender identity? When I wrote about empowerment in the class discussion, I was thinking of how femininity and the traits that are stereotypically female are often devalued in our society, and how women are encouraged to turn away from these in order to be taken seriously or to have power. Janet Mock and some other transwomen embrace those traits and characteristics and reject the traits of masculinity that were supposedly giving them power. I think there's a really interesting angle to this that might help CISwomen also embrace these traits, if they identify with them.
ReplyDelete